While family firms tend to be highly committed to their employees, scholars contend that founding family owners are likely hesitant when it comes to sharing ownership broadly with nonfamily employees. Taking a heterogeneous view of family firms, this study investigates the implications of different familial control‐enhancing mechanisms on the use of broad‐based employee ownership programs (BEOPs) among publicly‐traded family firms. Based on a five‐year panel data set of S&P 500 family firms, the findings indicate that certain control‐enhancing mechanisms can cause family owners to frame their decision to use BEOPs differently. Essentially, family firms with family CEOs, regardless of whether the CEO is a founder or descendant, have a decreased likelihood of using BEOPs in spite of the direct control that family owners have over the firm's operations. Conversely, when family owners hold dual‐class shares, which enhance shareholder voting power, family firms are more likely to use BEOPs. Furthermore, the likelihood of family firms with family CEOs using BEOPs increases when the family holds dual‐class shares. Moreover, there is no significant difference between founder and descendant CEOs, as both are less resistant to using BEOPs when a dual‐class share structure is in place. These findings have implications for HR practitioners working in family firms given the influence that family owners can have on the firm's HR activities, namely BEOPs.

While prior research demonstrates the strategic human resource (HR) advantages associated with offering work–family benefits (WFBs), firms continue to be reluctant in providing their employees with these benefits. Drawing on the corporate governance and stakeholder orientation literatures, this study examines the role of board independence and capital for WFBs being offered in publicly‐traded firms. Our results demonstrate that various director independence and capital attributes are related to the firm offering WFBs. Specifically, board directors who are outsiders, women, and holders of additional directorships, with their broad stakeholder orientation, increase the likelihood of WFBs being offered by the firm [Correction added on December 14, 2017, after first online publication: the preceding sentence has been updated to clarify the findings of the study.]. These findings are of importance to HR practitioners considering the influence that corporate boards can have on the firm's use of HR practices, such as WFBs, that affect all employees, not just the executives.

While prior board of director studies have considered the role of director occupational expertise in areas such as law and finance on the strategic actions of the firm, little consideration has been given to understanding the value that human resource expertise on boards of directors, or board HR expertise, can provide. Drawing upon agency and resource dependence theories, this study investigates the relationship between board HR expertise and the extent to which firms engage in diversity management. Furthermore, the moderating role of two organizational context factors—capital intensity and firm age—are considered, as these can highlight the degree to which firms strategically depend upon human capital. With a sample of 423 U.S. firms listed on the S&P 500 from 2002 to 2006, the findings indicate that firms with board HR expertise have stronger diversity management in comparison to firms lacking board HR expertise. Moreover, the positive effects of board HR expertise on diversity management decreases when firms’ capital intensity or age rises. This highlights the value that HR practitioners can provide in serving on boards of directors, and suggests that the magnitude of board HR experts’ influence hinges upon the firm's level of strategic dependence on human capital.

Despite growing research on the effect of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on family firm performance, the implications of socioemotional wealth (SEW) preservation remain ambiguous. This stems from SEW preservation being used primarily as an explanatory construct and assessed indirectly rather than directly in empirical studies. To address this research gap, we draw upon organizational control and signaling theories to determine the “true” interaction between HPWPs and SEW preservation for labor productivity. Specifically, competing hypotheses are presented to determine if this interaction supports complementarity or substitutability. Using a sample of 124 Spanish family firms and a direct measurement of SEW preservation, our results provide support for substitutability, suggesting that family firms can realize higher labor productivity when HPWPs are fully implemented and commitment to SEW preservation is low, and vice versa. These findings have important implications for family firms, given HPWPs’ inverse relationship with SEW preservation regarding labor productivity. JEL CLASSIFICATION J24, L20, L21, L26, M12_M12, M54_M54, O15

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